


In the Middle of the Night

by unourssongeur



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes-centric, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, One Shot, POV First Person, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 11:36:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6004444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unourssongeur/pseuds/unourssongeur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>But he was still my... my focus, the reason I was walking around in this world that doesn’t make any damn sense. He was the one point of familiarity in a sea of unknowns. So I couldn’t run. Not then, anyway. Hell, probably not even now. </i>
</p>
<p>Bucky hasn't figured out how to stay away. Or if he really wants to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Middle of the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Noccalula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noccalula/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Our Love Comes Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5994786) by [Noccalula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noccalula/pseuds/Noccalula). 



> Noccalula sent me the start of Our Love Comes Back. And I couldn't get the flip-side out of my head. So after some discussion, it was decided: I'd write Bucky's side of it. 
> 
> Here ya go. Noc doesn't like first person, but I love it, for some strange reason.

I didn’t want any of this. At least I can’t prove that I did want it. If you’d asked me 70 years ago whether I wanted to get caught up in a tangle of fucking and emotion with Steve Rogers, I’d probably have punched you. Maybe not _you_ , but then again, I don’t remember much of myself. 

It’s coming back, though. And that’s why I came back after the first time. At first, at least. After they found me, I lost all of who I was. And for decades, I didn’t give a fuck. They woke me up when they needed to use me, gave me a target and a mission. That was it. Those two details were my whole world until I succeeded and they put me back under. 

Then, they’d wipe me clean with a fresh new pain and stick me back on ice. It was simple and I didn’t have to deal with anything. You haven’t lived in denial until you’ve used murder and cryostasis to avoid the shit you don’t want to feel. 

Then, there was Steve on a bridge and I felt my simple life crack. Just a little. Then I pulled him out of the Potomac and I felt it shatter. I remembered...things. Feelings. Moments. And I was going to run. I laid the first false trail. Sent him and Wings to Prague. But I couldn’t start running. 

Because all I could think about was him. He’d been the one point of clarity until he had to go and pull his high and mighty friendship shit rather than just killing me or dying. Don’t give me that look. You know he’s as noble as they come. If it had been you, I’d be dead. 

But he was still my... my focus, the reason I was walking around in this world that doesn’t make any damn sense. He was the one point of familiarity in a sea of unknowns. So I couldn’t run. Not then, anyway. Hell, probably not even now. 

So he came back, and I followed my impulse after a few beers. Even after all he’s been through, it was easy to climb in his bedroom window. Too easy, almost. I wish it’d been hard. Then I could have given up and gone. Gone so far underground that he’d have to give up looking. 

No, you’re right. He’d never give up. Though once, he did let go. Not his fault. But it happened. I know it did. That piece came back into place after the first night. If I had died, I don’t think I’d be as upset about it, you know? But they didn’t let me, and now I’m a monster because of that fall. Maybe if I’d had this metal arm back then, things would have been different. 

Point is: the window wasn’t even locked. Nobody in this world leaves a window unlocked. But he did, and I came in. I was hoping that seeing him would either put the pieces of memory back together or shatter them completely. I didn’t care which, honestly. I needed some way to think of something other than those blue eyes. 

He didn’t say anything but my name, almost could have been a breath. My head exploded in a symphony of my name is his voice. It was beautiful and discordant and didn’t help anything. He was on his feet then, closing the gap. 

Fight or flight should have kicked in. I expected to run, or start the battle again.

But then he was inches away and I couldn’t think of anything but the way he said my name and those familiar eyes that carried ghosts like mine. No, don’t look at me like that. You’ve seen ‘em too. 

I kissed him hard, my hand resting on the back of his neck like we weren’t who we are. Like this was simple and it was easy. And I believed it for a second. Stupid, right? But he pulled back, looking at me in his way, and I remembered who he was and who I am. But I kissed him again, because this was a freefall I was going to experience. 

His clothes came off, so did mine. It felt like something we’d been doing for years. I had to watch the metal arm. It’s cold and his breath caught when it first touched him. I was deep in the feel of his skin, the muscle just beneath. He was so much more than I remembered in the fragments of before. I remember him being smaller. But he never felt little to me back then. Now he felt huge, and I felt like the runt who needed saving in an alley in Brooklyn.

But he reached out, and made me look in his eyes, and those memories fell away again. And we were back in the ebb and flow. Sex is sex is sex. But this felt like something I’d waited for, something I’d dreamt of once when I still knew what dreaming was. 

I’m not one who goes in for that “his body was made for mine” shit. But, it’s almost true. He followed my lead, I listened to him. For a quiet man, there was plenty to listen to. Pretty sure his neighbors were enjoying or confused by the show. You almost look surprised, but it’s true. We just got lost, my hand on him, his hand on me. There was touch and friction and sweat. 

And when it was done, there was guilt. Not ‘just had sex with a man’ guilt. But ‘he deserves better’ guilt. And ‘I didn’t deserve this’ guilt. So, I bolted. One last kiss and I was up, pants and boots on, shirt and jacket in hand. 

When he called after me, it started the symphony again. I looked at him, and I wanted nothing more than to stay right there. So, I took off. It was too much, too fast. After everything, it shouldn’t be that easy. I shouldn’t get to walk into his room, have literally the best sex of my life, and leave behind all this shit. So, I had to leave.

I went back underground, hiding at shelters, never too long in one place. I couldn’t let him find me. But I couldn’t stay away, either. I guess I never learned how to let a target go. So, I orbited his world. 

I only show up in the middle of the night, when everyone else in the world is ignoring us. We fall into a weird give and take. The first time felt familiar, every time since then has felt like a new experience, like we’re learning each other’s body in greater detail. Not much actual talking, but we say plenty in the give and take. And he makes enough noise to fill the silence. 

I can’t stay, though. I try. But every instinct is screaming that I can’t have this. This is safety and this is comfort and I am not allowed even a modicum of either. And he deserves better, I know. Someone who isn’t relegated to the secret hours in the night by circumstance and fear. 

Steve deserves someone warm and whole. I am literally neither of those things, not that he’d ever admit that truth. His hands have traced every scar on my body, he knows exactly how I broke on the outside. 

But I can’t let this go. Can’t let _him_ go. It’s almost like love, whatever this is. I want nothing more than to be right beside him all the time, and then I want him to be as far away from me as possible so maybe, just maybe, he’ll wise up. Too damn good for his own...for his own good. That sounded stupid coming out, but oh well. 

So I guess, this is our holding pattern for now. I show up at night and then disappear again. 

Romanov, do me a favor? Give him some kind of intel so that he can stop lying to Wilson. He’s a terrible liar, and he always did hate having to lie to friends especially. Just don’t tell him where you found me.


End file.
